1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to glass and more particularly to glass products incorporating used-container glass having a selected concentration of foreign inclusions.
2. Prior Art
Used glass containers have become a waste disposal problem of immense magnitude. In California alone, some 50 million bottles are discarded each week. Current efforts to solve the ecological problem created by such large quantities of waste glass have largely been directed to reclaiming the glass by procedures which typically involve sorting the glass containers by color and type, then removing all foreign materials, such as cellulosic labels, metal caps, metal retaining strips and the like therefrom and finally remelting the bottles. The sorting and cleanup procedures before the remelting are expensive and time consuming so that, to date, recycling of glass has not been carried out on a wide scale.
Container glass is also recycled by crushing it to a fine granular form, usually after removing metallic caps, strips and the like therefrom, and then adding the granulated glass as a filler in minor proportions to asphalts and tars. The resulting mix is used as a durable paving material. Such usage thus far also has not been sufficiently extensive to counteract an increasing need to clean up the environment, as by the development of economically attractive procedures and uses for used glass containers. Such new procedures should involve inexpensive reclaiming steps so as to encourage their widespread and extensive application to the vast quantities of glass containers accumulating week by week.